


Hair-Raising Fundrasier

by quiet__tiger



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Action, Crack, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 08:47:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10850532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiet__tiger/pseuds/quiet__tiger
Summary: Alfred tries to be a good sport. Of course nothing ever works out right.





	Hair-Raising Fundrasier

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Plant."
> 
> Originally posted to Livejournal 6th-Dec-2012.

Alfred carefully set the potted snake plant on the decorative table next to the chaise in Master Bruce’s study. He’d already put two plants in the parlor and three in the library, and was pleased with himself for finding such nice plants that added color to the dark rooms yet wouldn’t become a maintenance problem with loose leaves. The thick leaves grew straight upwards, adding a nice balance to the flat surfaces like tables and sofas and shelves in all the rooms.

He was also quite happy to support the science club at Master Dick’s school, which had been selling the plants to raise money. Along with different plants had been baked goods and wrapping paper, but he could make his own sweets and who wanted gifts wrapped in pictures of microscopes and test tubes?

Actually, maybe he ought to go back to the school and pick up a roll or two for Master Bruce.

Looking at the potted plant one more time, he nodded to himself, satisfied as to its placement on the table, and left the room.

In all his looking, Alfred never noticed the plant looking back.

~*~

Dick poked at the snake plants on the library, going to each pot and frowning into it. “These are so boring, Alfred. You should have gone with the ferns, or the ivy. Or the Rice Krispy treats.”

Straightening from his dusting, Alfred merely said, “You are welcome to choose your own plants to care for, Master Dick. I believe Master Bruce will enjoy these well enough. They’re also supposed to be quite difficult to kill, which you know is something of an issue in this household.”

“Bruce does have kind of an inability to pay attention to certain details.”

“He’s a genius and master detective, a skilled businessman and actor. But he is unable to keep to the schedule required to keep plants alive. These are supposed to be quite resilient, even for absent minded caregivers.”

Dick rubbed a leaf between his thumb and forefinger. “They’re nice, I guess.”

Dick pulled his hand away before he could realize the leaf was pulling itself away.

~*~

“Thank you for the, ah, plants, Alfred.” Bruce appreciated Alfred trying to spruce up his rooms, but plants always just died under his care. He’d given up. But if Alfred wanted to give himself more work, well, Bruce wasn’t going to stop him. Maybe he’d even help remember to water them every once and a while.

“They were for a good cause and add some much needed color. Much easier than replacing the drapes and carpets.”

“They do look nice.” Who couldn’t use some extra life in a room? “This little one on the mantel is quite darling.”

Alfred raised his eyebrow, and Bruce was about to say he hadn’t meant to sound mocking, but then Dick walked by the parlor’s big double doors.

He stopped as he said, “There you are. This place is too big. When’s dinner?”

Bruce answered, “Manners, Dick,” right as Alfred said, “Either now if you prepare leftovers yourself, or in two hours’ time.”

Dick huffed, but nodded as he said, “Gotcha.”

“Dick.”

“Sorry, Bruce… ‘All right, Alfred, thank you.’”

“Finish your homework. Then dinner, then patrolling.”

“Excellent.”

As Dick walked away, Bruce shook his head. “I assume I had even worse manners when I was his age.”

“There were times I had my doubts about you.”

Remembering bouts of depression, fighting anger, not knowing how to handle the added pressures of school while knowing he was meant for more, Bruce smiled tightly. “Me too.”

Bruce gave another look around the parlor, and maybe Dick had a point; Bruce couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in this room other than to look for something contained within it. He and Alfred left it together, and neither noticed the little snake plant turning in their direction.

~*~

Bruce wasn’t prone to napping, but he’d had a rough patrol the night before and an early meeting where he pretended to be hung over and a later meeting where the benefits of single ply toilet paper versus double ply and full size paper towels versus the smaller ones were discussed, and Bruce had wondered why he was even _at_ a meeting like that but remembered he’d promised to make an appearance at all levels of the company. Which apparently had included cost-benefit analyses of paper products.

So he forgave himself for nodding off while reading about new plastic polymers.

He was dreaming when the attack came, so at first he didn’t realize anything was wrong.

The red hot pain slicing through his side woke him, and his body jerked away from the stimulus even as he rolled and flipped himself onto his feet. Pressing a hand against the wound, Bruce could only stare at his attacker.

On the table next to the chaise where he’d been sleeping, the snake plant, which at one point had been twenty-six inches tall and utterly harmless, was now fifty-eight inches tall, give or take, and its tip was dripping Bruce’s blood and some fibers from his sweater. “What on earth?”

The plant didn’t answer him—thank God—and only struck at him again, its stiff tip slicing bladelike through the air. He was able to dodge easily but then another leaf tried to get him from behind.

“Alfred!”

He heard a shout from the parlor, and turned towards the door. But two leaves wrapped themselves around his ankles and held on tight, while two of the other leaves sliced at him again. One got his chin as he tried to move his feet, and damn but the thing was strong.

Not believing it, Bruce found himself in hand-to-hand combat with a plant in his own study, trying to fight huge, flat, sharp leaves as if they were an angry squid’s tentacles. The ones around his ankles wrapped themselves tighter and had more leaves join them, the edges starting to fray his pant legs.

He blocked one with his forearm as he dodged another and looked around for a weapon. Anything. He merely succeeded in pulling the pot off the table, which seemed to give the plant the idea it was mobile. Wonderful. Able to maneuver its leaves and provide lift, the plant moved its pot closer to Bruce, which meant there was more slack for its grip on his legs and more leverage it could get into its blows.

As if the situation couldn’t get more embarrassing, Dick charged into the room, yelling at the top of his lungs and brandishing a… Bruce spared a thought for the current state of the suit of armor in the hallway; the joints were locked tight so getting the sword free must mean pieces were torn off.

But Dick and his sword were able to do the trick; the snake plant lay in pieces on the floor, wet pulp forming a puddle under them. Breathing heavily, Dick helped Bruce free himself. Alfred joined them in the middle of the process, and Bruce tried not to smirk at indignant expression on his face. But he couldn’t blame him; the Oriental rug was destroyed.

Bruce free, plant vanquished, Dick looked at the destroyed remains of the plant. “What the heck is going on? I was looking through the encyclopedia one second, and the next I have leaves trying to strangle me and slice me to ribbons.” Bruce did notice green streaks and a new bruise on Dick’s throat. “So I do what I can to wriggle free and use the encyclopedia to smash the plant until I can get free and grab a real weapon.” He added sheepishly, “You’re gonna need a new knight.”

“I think I need a lot of things. Like some information. All of the new plants attacked us?”

“The three in the library.”

Alfred nodded. “The two in the parlor, though the little one didn’t do much except throw itself off the mantel and try to trip me. I suppose it couldn’t grow as much as its brothers.”

“And they were from the science club?” Dick nodded. “Where did the science club get them?”

“Some nice but dorky looking lady.” Seeing Bruce’s expression demanding more details, Dick continued. “She had on these big glasses and this ugly trench coat and an ugly hat, but I could see she had pretty… red… hair… It was Poison Ivy.”

Bruce gave in to the urge to scrub a hand over his face. “Your school bought plants from Pamela Isley and sold them to raise money. For what again?”

“Ah… We want to build an observatory.”

“Which will have to go on a remote area outside the city away from light pollution, which will probably destroy land that Ivy either has or wants for herself or is the only known location of some rare plant.”

“When you put it that way, the science club looks pretty stupid.”

“No, just the staff members in charge. This is Gotham City. All vendors must be verified as legitimate. Otherwise anyone can sell products and wreak havoc.”

“We gotta tell everyone.”

“No, Dick, we can only say we were attacked. Putting the pieces together will likely draw attention to us.”

“But can’t Batman and Robin at least go after Ivy?”

“Believe me, they will. But first let’s call your faculty advisor and tell him what happened so he can call everyone else, and then we need to clean this mess up.”

Alfred went with Dick to make the phone call, and Bruce picked up chunks of leaves and tossed them into the garbage can next to his desk.

At least for once the strangeness in his life wasn’t necessarily related to being Batman. As he winced as he bent too much for the wound in his side, Bruce thought through some ways to get to Ivy. Endangering kids wasn’t usually her modus operandi, but stranger things have happened.

Plant guts staining the floor provided a grim reminder that if the Joker had wanted to sell something at the fundraiser, the circumstances would be much worse.

Bruce would take what he could get, and be grateful he only needed to replace his carpet. There was so much more in his home that could be damaged, and was irreplaceable. When Dick returned Bruce wrapped him in a hug, and when Dick squeaked out, “What gives?” Bruce didn’t answer. He knew Dick would figure it out soon enough.


End file.
